When Vibhishana went over to the side of virtue, why didn’t Vidura do the same?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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If Vibhishan went over to the side of Rama, Vidura also is in the situation. But Vidura did not go over to the side of Pandavas. Why is that? Is there a question? Yeah.
That is because Vidura still had an affectionate relationship with Dhritarashtra and Dhritarashtra could be relieved. So if Vidura had gone over to the side of the Pandavas and Vidura had been a part of the army that killed Dhritarashtra’s sons and Dhritarashtra was so antagonized that he would not have been able to take good counsel from it. So Vidura just went on pilgrimage at that time and later on he came back.
So in the Mahabharata, in the Ramayana, the main difference is that Vidura is not the brother of the villain. The main villain is actually Duryodhana and Dhritarashtra is more like a… Like in India for 8 years or 10 years there was one person in the chair of the Prime Minister and the other person was actually in power. So like that, Dhritarashtra was simply the person in the chair of the king but Duryodhana was the real person in power.
So Dhritarashtra, it is not that he was a virtuous person but he was not malicious actually because of his attachment with Duryodhana, he sometimes became malicious. So he was redeemable and in order to redeem him, Vidura took the necessary strategy, just went on pilgrimage and later he came back. But Ravana had clearly proven himself to be a redeemable and Ravana was not a side factor.
Ravana was the main villain. There was no chance of redeeming him. That’s why Bhikshun went over to Zahidapuram but Vidura did not.
Vidura stayed on so that later on he could counsel and elevate Dhritarashtra. Thank you.